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SPEECHES 

OP 

SENATOR LeROY PERCY 



Before the Mississippi Legislature 
and Resolutions Adopted l)y 
the Legislature in Re- 
gard to the Sena- 
torial Election 



F3 4-I 




Li:RoY Pkkcy 



By trftOB'w 

OCT 8 \9». 



mnitsA ^tatBS ^enatr 

Washington, D. C. 



To the Voters of Mississippi: 

I am sending you in this pamphlet the speeches 
and resolutions, not because I think that there is 
either literary excellence or oratorical ability 
manifested by the speeches, but 

First : Because I am personally unacquainted 
with thousands of the voters of the State, many 
of whom I will not have the opportunity of meet- 
ing during the short time allowed for a canvass 
of the State, and these speeches made at crucial 
times during a heated contest before the Legis- 
lature may assist you in forming some estimate 
of me. 

Second : I want every Mississippian to know 
that the Legislature of the State, after a full and 
complete investigation, has said by a practically 
unanimous vote, concurred in by those who op- 
posed as well as those who supported me, that 
no shadow of dishonor rests upon the Legisla- 
ture of the State, upon no one of its eighty- 
seven members who voted for me, or upon the 
commission which I received from that Legisla- 
ture to represent the State of Mississippi in the 
United States Senate. 

If you are willing that I should represent the 
State in the United States Senate, I ask your 
support. If you are in doubt about it, I ask 
that you withhold judgment until I have the op- 
portunity of meeting you. 




^^ 



Speech Made to the Legislative Caucus in Re- 
sponse to an Invitation to Speak Extended 
by the Caucus to the Candidates for die 
United States Senate. 

Mr. Chairman, GENTLKxrEN of the Caucus and 
Fellow Democrats : 

''Government is • a business — the business of 
handHng the affairs of the nation and disbursing 
the money collected by taxation in the manner 
which best conduces to the happiness and wel- 
fare of the people. We stand at the threshold 
of an era of unparalleled material prosperity, and 
the eyes of the whole country seem to be turned 
toward the South, and toward no part of the 
South more than toward Mississippi. 

"We are only a partially developed State, and 
stand sorely in need of government aid, govern- 
ment aid for improving navigation of our great 
river and making it capable of bearing in ocean- 
going steamers the commerce of the great West. 
Money is needed for cleaning out and making 
navigable its many tributaries, for the improve- 
ment of our magnificent ports on the southern 
coast, for the reclamation of our swamp lands 
by drainage, for the development of our agri- 
culture in the study of soil and the protection 
of this from noxious insects. And while in the 
past Mississippi has received but scant aid from 
the Government, the time is at hand when she 
can receive all that may be due her. 

sectional lines obliterated. 

"Sectional lines have been obliterated, the peo- 
ple of the Union, understanding each other bet- 
ter, have drawn closer together in the bonds of 
a common brotherhood. 

"Not only an era of prosperity, but one of peace 
and good will seems to have come to us, and 
the man that you need in the United States Sen- 
ate is the one that can best, honorably, obtain 
for you that consideration to which you are fairly 
entitled. This high office is not a bauble to be 
lightly tossed to any man to gratify his personal 
ambition. It is a trust to be bestowed upon him 
who can best subserve the interests of the people 
of the State of Mississippi, and upon j^ou de- 
volves the responsibility of naming the man. 

"But little can be accomplished through spec- 
tacular statesmanship, engaged in an ill-advised 
pursuit of fads and chimeras, through one who 
is not in position to accept aid honorably prof- 
fered, who permits vituperation, insult and abuse 
to usurp the place of argument, who excites de- 
rision abroad and discord at home. 



"In other States where there arc two parlies 
these parties enunciate their respective platforms, 
and on these platforms their candidates do battle, 
but in Mississippi, where w'e have only one part}-, 
the candidates fight only on the old Democratic 
platform, unless some candidate hy his methods 
and issues creates new questions, and if such 
candidate is named, his methods and issues then 
become the methods and issues of the Democratic 
party of the State. And in this case the crisis 
that has, in my opinion, come to the Democratic 
party, arises out of the political methods and 
issues enunciated by Governor Vardaman. 

"We have come to the parting of the ways ; 
we either follow the blazed path of established 
Democratic principles or we wander off to strange 
gods and commit ourselves to the advocacy of 
unfamiliar doctrines, demagogic in nature and 
hurtful in effect. 

PROTEST AG.AIXST V.\RDAM.\N. 

■"I protest against the Democracy of the State 
of Mississippi being committed to the political 
methods used and issues created by Governor 
Vardaman. They can bring to the State no good 
from abroad, but over and above and beyond 
everything else, I want the Democracy of the 
State of Mississippi to put the brand of its dis- 
approval now and forever upon any man who 
seeks, for the purpose of political gain, to breed 
discord and strife between the two races, which, 
under the fiat of an Almighty God, have been 
placed on Alississippi soil for tlie purpose of there 
working out their common destiny. 

"I am not one of those who say that there is 
no negro problem. He who fails to see it is 
blind. He who fails to admit it is imtrue to him- 
self and to his people. There is a problem, 
the greatest probably that ever confronted an 
Anglo-Saxon race — that of endeavoring to admin- 
ister government so as to preserve harmony and 
conduce to the happiness of two races as dissim- 
ilar in their character, habits and conditions as 
the Caucasian and the negro. How is it to be 
solved? How- have Mississippians treated the 
problem that confronted them in the past? Her 
illustrious leaders — Lamar, George, Walthall, 
Lowry, Stone, Street and others — with the solid 
yeomanry of the State at their backs, snatched 
law and order from the chaos of carpet bag rule 
and built and created government and civilization 
out of the anarchy of negro domination. To 
•whom did they call for assistance? To the God 
that rules over the destinies of nations. By 
His aid and with their own courage and char- 
acter they met and conquered those dangers, 
creating a constitution that has been the model 
for the constitution of every other Southern 
State — one that answered, when it was created, 
every purpose for which it was intended and to- 
day." twenty years after its creation, is in first- 



class working order and requires no tinkering 
with by would-be statesmen. 

"There never was an hour in the history of the 
State when the constitution of this State was 
better performing the purposes for which it was 
designed than now. Not only is white supremacy 
absolutely established in every office, from that of 
constable to Supreme Court judge, but is recog- 
nized and acquiesced in by the negroes, as every 
man of you know. If any danger should arise of 
which the present gives no promise those dangers 
must be met. Those problems, whatever they 
may be, must be solved by Mississippians for 
themselves, without any aid from beyond the 
State, by State legislation and without aid by 
national legislation. 

"Twice has the Federal Government taken part 
in the race question in Mississippi; once when it 
issued the proclamation of emancipation, and once 
again when it passed the amendments giving the 
negro the right of suflfrage. Do you want aid of 
that kind? No, my fellow-countrymen. Do as 
you see fit with your office of Senator, but, for 
God's sake, go home taking with you in your 
breast to your people and to your children the 
truth that the negro question must be handled 
by us alone, and let them not lay awake like a 
child crying in the night for assistance which 
will never come to their aid. « 

NO NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 

"There is today no such thing as negro suffrage 
in Mississippi, and never will be as long as the 
white men of the State stand together. What is 
the cost of white supremacy? It is simply that 
the white people of the State are compelled to 
stand shoulder to shoulder, driven together and 
held together by a common danger. The problem 
is great in itself, but is one which can be handled 
day by day as it develops, if freed from the agi- 
tation and discord created by demagoguery. 

"What is the principle to which Governor Var- 
daman means to commit the Democracy of the 
State of Mississippi, when he says that his un- 
ending fight shall be for the repeal of the fif- 
teenth and modification of the fourteenth amend- 
ment? Unless this is intended for home con- 
sumption alone, for vote-getting and his politi- 
cal use, to be pigeon-holed in Washington, it 
means that he advocates the ceaseless agitation 
of this question by the people of the South until 
the end is accomplished. 

"There is nothing new in the question itself. 
For the past twenty years measures of this sort 
have been introduced into either branch of the 
houses of Congress. The novelty consists only 
in the commitment of the South to the general 
and untiring agitation of the question. I shrink 
back affrighted from the consequences of such 
a policy. However monumental may be the ego- 
tism of any advocate of this plan, no one prom- 



ises or hopes that the resuU shall be attained 
within a generation. It means then that through 
the days and through the months and through the 
years that are to come it is to be continually 
agitated, abuse and vituperation is to be heaped 
upon the negro in order to prove what every man 
in Mississippi knows, that he should not be al- 
lowed to exercise the right of suffrage. The pas- 
sions of both races are to be appealed to, the 
negro is to be rendered discontented and mor- 
bid, dissatisfied and restless. 

DANGER OF DISCONTENT. 

"Gentlemen, the prosperity of no country can 
bear the burden of a discontented peasantry ; with 
the passions of both races inflamed, lawlessness 
is sure to be encouraged and if allowed to run 
rampant clashes will occur. Unless we would 
deliberately make a bad matter worse we ought 
to plan no campaign of discord and dissension, 
leaving behind its trail of evil, struggling for 
what no sane thought holds can be attained. If 
the repeal of this amendment could even come 
to us it will come from without, not within the 
South. It will come from the knowledge that 
the other sections of the Union have of the negro, 
by their own troubles with him, and the coming 
of it would only be delayed and retarded by agi- 
tation here. 

"Furthermore, he who believes that doing away 
with the right of suffrage solves the race question 
has no conception of the magnitude of the ques- 
tion. You might as well lather the negro's head 
to cure a case of Asiatic cholera — it is but skin 
treatment. The problem lies in the very exist- 
ence of the two races in equal numbers on com- 
mon soil, and the problem exists with or without 
the right of suffrage. 

"If the relief is only to come to the people of 
the South through the repeal of the fifteenth and 
the modification of the fourteenth amendment 
brought about by ceaseless agitation from the 
South through the years to come of this ques- 
tion, then, my fellow-countrymen, we shall go 
through an era of chaos, disorder, ruin and de- 
spair, by which even the horrors of reconstruc- 
tion will pale into insignificance. 

"The illustrious statesmen of Mississippi, 
George, Walthall, and more than any of them. 
Lamar, have all advocated in the past the policy 
of developing and bringing out the best that is 
in the inferior race by just, conciliatory treat- 
ment. Can it be that when we held them great 
we worshipped idols with feet of clay? Has 
there never been but one great tree in the Mis- 
sissippi forest of statesmen? 

SOLUTION OF THE QUESTION. 

"No, fellow-Democrats, foreign help and na- 
tional legislation will bring you no relief. The 
burden of solving this question is with you. The 



burden itself rests on your shoulders, and on your 
brains and your intelligence and your character 
you must rely for the handling of it, for the solu- 
tion of the question. And unless you are degen- 
erate sons of great sires you need not be afraid 
of the result. 

"The question is not one to be settled today, 
nor tomorrow, but is with us through the years 
as far as the eye of mortal man can reach. It 
must be handled conservatively, not radically; 
patiently, not hastily; justly, not harshly; but, 
above all, in kindness and in charity for the 
race which is condemned always to live under 
the white man's rule and the white man's govern- 
ment, administered by the white man. 

"While T am no dreamer of dreams, yet, look- 
ing into the future, I believe I can see the twO' 
races working out their common destiny in peace, 
good will and harmony — the negro race satisfied 
and industrious, the white race grown by the 
greater danger which it has encountered, by the 
constant exercise of its noble qualities, to be the 
highest and best product of the Anglo-Saxon 
civilization that has come down the river of time."' 



Reply to an Attack Made by Governor Varda- 
man in the Issue Upon the Senatorial Can- 
didates and the Legislature. 

It has been a cause of congratulation not only 
among the members of the legislature, but 
throughout the State, that the fight for the sena- 
torial succession has been singularly free from 
acrimony and personalities. 

Ex-Governor Vardaman, however, in The Issue 
of January 29th, publishes an article entitled 
"Some Reasons Why the Conservatives Are 
Fighting Vardaman for the Senate," in which, 
after enumerating his virtues, he claims that he 
is being opposed for "that one act of fidelity to 
the people" evinced by his veto of the bill au- 
thorizing the Mobile and Ohio and the Southern 
Railroads to merge, and proceeds to state : "Every 
railroad attorney, the representatives of the lum- 
ber trust, the oil trust, the whiskey trust, and 
every other trust that does business in the State 
of Mississippi have their agents in Jackson fight- 
ing his nomination. Let a man deny it, and I 
will give him the names and let the people judge 
for themselves." 

He further states : "After the senatorial con- 
test is over I am going to write a full historj^ 
of the contest, giving every man's record as it is 
understood." This is mere empty vaporing, or a 
deliberate charge that all of the trusts and cor- 
porate influences in the State of Mississippi are 
actively engaged in corrupting the legislature in 
order to 1)ring about Vardaman's defeat ; that 
only the pure in Iieart arc supporting him, and 



only such legislators are to be found opposing 
him as have been corrupted and debauched by 
trust and corporate iniiuence. 

As in announcing my candidacy I plead guilty 
to the charge of making a living practicing law, 
accepting individual or corporate practice, and 
did not boast of being a briefless barrister de- 
pendent upon the charity of my friends or the 
forbearance of my creditors, it may not appear 
presumptuous or egotistical in me to assume that 
I am referred to as one of the opposition em- 
ploying such improper influences to defeat Var- 
daman's nomination. 

I emphatically deny that any improper influ- 
ence is engaged in forwarding my candidacy, and 
so far as the article applies to me, I challenge 
the truthfulness of the statement and call for the 
proof. 

I ask that the names of all corporate represen- 
tatives who are endeavoring to accomplish the 
defeat of Vardaman be given, that it be stated 
for whose nomination thev are working and the 
methods employed by them ; what legislators 
have been debauched bv them, and the honesty of 
what legislators is being undermined by them. 

In the supreme contentment of his marvelous 
egotism the radical candidate apparently believes 
that only debauchery of the legislature can ac- 
count for opposition to him. But, passing over 
the fact that many conservative legislators re- 
gard him as a reckless agitator and a demagogic 
strife-breeder, can not there be found in his 
vituperation and vicious abuse of people high in 
church and state sufficient reasons for a conser- 
vative legislator, even though uncorrupted, to 
hesitate about naming him as the senatorial 
spokesman for the State of Mississippi? 

No man, however loved he might be, or ever 
exalted was his position, has been shielded either 
by the dignity of his office or the esteem of his 
fellow man from this coarse abuse, nor has wo- 
man been spared. Illustrative of this, speaking 
of Dr. Bailey; the editor of the Baptist Record, 
in his paper, the Greenwood Commomvealth of 
August 15, 1902, this language is used : 

"This strange mingliii!: of pretended piety and 
piss-aiit malevolence of the stupid parson and the 
unscrupulous politican of unfathomable ignorance 
and asinine wisdom, of the dirty tool in their 
dirtier hands of the stili dirtier manipulator, and 
OTcr and above all, as high as the sparkling 
Pleiades hang above the groveling earth, the cheap, 
pusillanimous qualities of this Christ but * * * 
discrediting real eighteen carat fraud but for one 
of these little nubbin-stud, self-sanctified theologi- 
cal runts of the type who edits the Baptist. I have 
not the language to express the depth of my 
commiseration and contempt." 

In referring to Dr. Quincy Ewing, a most 
highly esteemed and Iclovcd pastor of the Epis- 
copal Church at Greenville, Mississippi, who had 



preached a sermon which did not suit the radical 
candidate, he said : 

"The lurid and hell-belching utterances of the 
Greenville clergyman and other sprightly mis- 
takes of his class will not reduce the number of 
lynchings in Mississippi, or anyzvhere else, but 
they will give this gentleman a little notoriety 
which after all seems to be the great desideratum. 
I think this clerical Don Quixote would like to 
have a better paying job in a northern city and 
fell upon this plan as the cheapest and most ef- 
fectual zvay of advertisement for it. I hope to 
God he may get it." 

He has never denied that in referring to the 
lamented Bishop Galloway he mentioned him as 
"chasing around the country with a belly full of 
hot air and yellow legged chickens airing his 
views on the negro question." 

And referring to the unfortunate accident which 
happened at The Coliseum in Jackson when 
Bishop Galloway was injured by the falling of the 
platform while attending a lecture of Booker 
Washington, in The Issue of October 10, 1908, he 
said : 

"At the conclusion of Booker's speech at the 
Coliseum in the city of Jackson the jim crow 
apartment which was occupied by some select 
white folks fell in. I am glad that no one was 
killed or seriously wounded, but especially the 
negroes. The white people who attended were 
out of place and a few scratches and bruist^s, lest 
liats and torn coattails, and being sat upon by a 
few rancid negro women were no more than they 
deserved. I am opposed to zvhite folks and ne- 
groes associating even on such occasions as this. 
The negro can't stand it and I am in favor of pro- 
tecting the negro in his racial rights." 

Three dififerent presidents of the United States 
in recent years have passed through the State 
or visited it as honored guests. Referring to the 
expected visit to the State of William McKinley, 
probably the most beloved president since the 
war, and the one who first undertook to obliter- 
ate sectional lines and who endeavored to secure 
legislation providing for the care of Confederate 
graves by the National Government, when Mc- 
Kinley had been invited by the Governor of the 
State to pass through the State in the day time 
in order to see it, he expressed the wish through 
his paper that "he zvould pass through the .'itate 
on an August night in a box car filled zvith 
szveaty negroes zvith the crezices stopped up so 
that the effluvia from the negroes might not 
escape." 

On a very recent occasion when President Taft 
was to be the guest, by request, of the city of 
Jackson, he referred to him as follows : 

"He is addicted to golf, guff and gab. He Jias 
a face zvith a smile which is his largest political 
asset and which he has cultivated until it has 
become as fast set as the grin about the mouth 

10 



of a defunct feline. He has little twinkling por- 
cine eyes and a dew-lap under his chin. His ut- 
terances are ponderous platitudes and the apo- 
theosis of the obvious." 

Referring to President Roosevelt, in The Com- 
fiionwcaltli of January 10, 1903, he uses the ex- 
pression (that is the paper was being edited by 
him, and I have heard of no public denial being 
made of the authorship) : 

"It is said that men follow the bent of their 
genius, that pre-natal influences are often potent 
in shaping thoughts and ideas of after life. Prob- 
ably old lady Roosevelt during the period of 
gestation was frightened by a dog and that fact 
may account for the qualities of the male pup 
which are so prominent in Teddy. I would not 
do either an injustice, but I am disposed to apolo- 
gise to the dog for mentioning it." 

This was written about a Southern lady. Is 
the boasted spirit of Southern chivalry so dead 
that a brutal utterance of this nature is to be 
stamped with the approval of the men of Mis- 
sissippi? 

Does the indecency of these utterances furnish 
no reason for a conservative legislator and Mis- 
sissippi gentleman, even though uncorrupted by 
corporate wealth to hesitate about naming the 
man who uttered them as United States Senator, 
realizing that thereby his ability to wield any 
influence for the good of the State has been de- 
stroyed ? 

Whether I be named as United States Senator 
is a matter of trivial importance to the State of 
Mississippi. But Governor Vardaman is known 
to the people of the United States only by his 
utterances, and the legislature of the State of 
Mississippi should bear well in mind the fact that 
the attention of the entire South is focused upon 
it, and that the selection of Vardaman for the 
Senate will be held to indicate sympathy with and 
endorsement of his many shocking utterances. 



Speech to the Caucus Upon Being Elected to 
the United States Senate. 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow Democrats : I have 
prepared so many speeches of withdrawal, so 
many speeches of resignation, and have been 
so much engaged in the canvass which has ended 
tonight that I have really had no time to pre- 
pare the speech I am now called upon to make. 

No more stubborn fight has ever been made 
by a braver foe in the history of Mississippi than 
has been waged in this senatorial contest (ap- 
plause), and if discouragement and gloom have 
sometimes been with him in the past weary 
weeks I assure you they have been familiar com- 
panions with us. 

11 



He would have been an optimist indeed who 
believed that out of this canvass he certainly 
foresaw victory. 

The long weeks of struggle are over. You 
have made your choice, and the fight has been 
made, I believe, I trust, I hope so as to leave 
as few heart burns behind it as a fight of such 
intensity and duration could ever leave. 

The members who voted against me and have 
worked against me, I want to thank for the uni- 
form, unfailing courtesy, kindness and consid- 
eration which they have ever shown me. 

For the men who stood by me, words absolutely 
fail me to tell them one hundredth part of the 
affection and the love that the companionship 
of this struggle has kindled in my breast (ap- 
plause). As long as life lasts, and wherever I 
may be, I am ready to do their bidding and their 
call wherever honor and duty do not stand in 
the pathway. 

In going to the Senate, the exalted position 
to which you have by your votes selected me, 
the responsibility it places upon me absolutely 
destroys any feeling of elation over the vic- 
tory that you have brought to me, because I 
know that struggle as I may, I can add nothing 
to the luster that the statesmen who have gone 
before in the years gone by have brought to 
the name of Mississippi in the national council 
(applause). 

I can only say to you with all my manhood, 
with all my courage, with all my character I 
will strive to discharge the high duties you have 
imposed upon my shoulders, and if I cannot 
bring distinction to the State of Alississippi, 
gentlemen, I will not bring shame to it. 

For the time you have chosen me I con- 
secrate my life to the service of my State. I 
take it that this is a mandate to represent with 
what ability, with what dignity I can the sov- 
ereign State of Mississippi in the councils of the 
Nation. I take it, too, that it is a mandate from 
this legislature for me to justify and defend the 
choice they have this day made for the State of 
Mississippi, and I pledge you now, God giving 
me health and strength, to preach face to face 
to the people of Mississippi in every county in 
this State the principles of what I believe to be 
sane, old-fashioned, time-honored democracy (ap- 
plause). 

Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart for the 
great honor you have bestowed upon me, and 
I hope you will never have cause to regret your 
choice. 

T thank you, gentlemen. 



Speech Made Before the Joint Session of the 
Mississippi Legislature on Friday, April 
15, 1910. 

Mr. Speaker, ]\Iembers of the Mississippi Legis- 
lature and Fellow Democrats : 

T am glad to be with j-oii again. (Applause.) 
Much water has flowed by the mill since last I 
stood here and looked in your faces, and it is 
good to have a chance to talk with you again. 
(Applause.) 

Coming from the National Capital, I can bring 
you glad tidings for national democracy. The 
great party that scarce more than a year age 
was swept into power by an overwhelming ma- 
jority, with a Chief Executive entering his high 
office under brighter auspices than ever attended 
the inauguration of any previous President, to- 
day is like a rudderless ship wallowing in an 
angry tempest. Already from Massachusetts has 
come the triumphant note of democracy. (Ap- 
plause.) The Republican Speaker has been bat- 
tling for his life before a Republican House. The 
President has abandoned the quiet and digni- 
fied seclusion of his great office, and is now going 
hither and thither pleading and imploring with 
the Republicans not to destroy their party. The 
leader of Indiana democracy has already defied 
and taunted the established leaders of the Re- 
publican party for their broken pledges. Under 
the curse of its broken tariff pledges, the Re- 
publican party realizes it is foredoomed to go 
down in ignominious defeat, and the reason they 
make that defeat so certain are the reasons that 
give value and worth to it. Why, the bewildered 
leaders of Republicanism ask, is this storm swept 
down upon us out of a cloudless sky because we 
have broken a pledge given the people in the 
National Republican Convention ? Why, in all 
of the years gone by, we have never kept a party 
pledge and such a visitation as this has never 
come upon us. Why now are we assailed, not 
only by our enemies from without, but those 
who have hitherto yielded to the party cry from- 
within ? They do not know that the blight of sec- 
tionalism has swept over the country without 
the people viewing the acts of their rulers with un- 
prejudiced eyes, not dimmed by poison, nor 
blinded by prejudice, and that the intelligence 
of the manhood of America is asserting itself 
politically as never in the history of this coun- 
try, and that this party or any other party is- 
going to be held to a stricter accountability to- 
party pledges than ever before in our history ; 
and that is what spells triumphant democracy. 
(Applause.) 

The party that lives close to the people and 
carries out the pledges made by it in order to 

13 



secure an election, vindicates them when that 
election has been secured. But, fellow Missis- 
sippians, great papers have flashed this glad 
intelligence abroad to buoy up the hopes of 
democracy in our entire country. Those same 
great papers have carried an intelligence which 
has stained her name and cast the blush of 
sliame on the brow of every Mississippian. The 
shameless story has been spread broadcast over 
the land that a Mississippi legislature has been 
debauched and corrupted by a son of Missis- 
sippi. Among strangers, seeking as best I could 
to uphold the dignity of the State, whose com- 
mission I bore, knowing that that commission 
had been won as fairly and as honorably as any 
ever held by a son of Mississippi (loud ap- 
plause), knowing that I had entered the political 
struggle through no desire to gratify personal 
ambition ; that I had cast my lot in it with those 
who had fought because they believed that Mis- 
sissippi was threatened with a grave disaster 
in the election of James K. Vardaman (loud ap- 
plause), knowing that I had forbidden those 
who left me at home to bear one cent of the ex- 
pense incident to the campaign here and said to 
them that there is no expense except the legiti- 
mate expenses that attended the prolonged stay 
in the Capital City; thank God no money has been 
spent on a Mississippi legislature (loud ap- 
plause) : knowing that not a cent of my money, 
nor of anybody else's money for my benefit 
has been used to influence the result, it seemed 
tliat the cup was a bitter one for me. I had 
come from no race of ofiice seekers (applause), 
but from men who always held honor above life, 
country above self. (Loud applause). An un- 
tarnished name had been handed to me by my 
forefathers, and it was made bright and has made 
me brighter with the thought that that untar- 
nished name should go from me to those who 
should bear it hereafter. But the indignation that 
sprang from personal feelings was swallowed up 
in the indignation that aroused in me when I 
realized that the name of the State of Missis- 
sippi was sought to be dragged in the mire of 
degradation for political aggrandizement. The 
telegrams grew thicker, the air was full of ru- 
mors of foul deeds done, lies and slanders, and, 
worse than that, the intimations, the suggestions, 
the innuendoes, the unfathered questions, for 
which no man would stand, by which it was 
sought to break down the names of those that 
Mississippi has held in reverence, Anderson, 
Critz, Alexander, Byrd, Kyle, as pure and able 
patriots as the State of Mississippi has ever pro- 
duced and whose characters put no shield to the 
doors of calumny. Nay, how could Dulaney hope 
to go unscathed, when a new filled grave afforded 
no shield to the character of one who has gone 
from you to his last reward since I last heard 
from you ? The name of Heslep, he who only 

14 



lately filled a place here, and then a grave in 
the cemetery, was to be besmirched, because 
through earnest effort, he had been able to lift 
a mortgage that had been pressed down upon him, 
with means which it has been asserted must have 
come into his hands from polluted sources. 
Honest men looked into each others faces and 
their hearts seemed heavy and the stain of 
shame mounted to their cheeks as they asked 
each other in wonder, can it be that the sons of 
Mississippi have stained, for political gain, the 
name of Mississippi? 

And then came your investigation, the most 
searching that a legislature has ever made, where 
neither time nor expense was spared, and then 
at the end of it there is left standing on the 
stage a mark for the scorn and contempt of 
all honest men (applause) only one figure, a char- 
acterless man, a self-confesed liar, a self-accused 
bribe-taker (applause) and for his only ally a 
poor, broken-down, shameless woman of the 
streets (applause) ; for every reputable witness 
named by Bilbo who would corroborate his story 
shrank back affrighted as if from a contamina- 
tion or pestilence that would follow the touching 
of this moral leper. 

High above the odor of calumny and shame, 
as the star in the sky, flaunts the honor of Mis- 
sissippi above reach of the things that would 
break it down for political gain. And your in- 
vestigation has shown to the world that no stain 
rests upon the commission that you have given 
me (applause) ; that no suspicion or reproach 
rests upon the integrity of the State of Missis- 
sippi, or upon a single one of the eighty-seven 
votes that were cast in my favor (applause). 

I know my commission was fairly won. The 
legislature of the State of Mississippi knows 
that the commission was honestly won, the peo- 
ple of the State of Mississippi have not been 
thwarted, and the expressions of their choice 
has not been prevented. I deny that the will of 
the people has been thwarted. I say that the 
same reason that made the legislature of the 
State of Mississippi repudiate Vardamanism 
makes the people of the State of Mississippi will- 
ing and desirous of repudiating Vardamanism 
because they are weary of his senseless agitation 
and strife-breeding, and I say that I am pre- 
pared to maintain that before the people of the 
State, and I say furthermore that I am anxious 
for the opportunity of maintaining it and assert- 
ing it at the earliest possible moment before the 
people of my State (applause). No man prizes 
more highly the honor of representing Missis- 
sippi in the Senate of the United States than I 
do, and it is an honor because I believe that I 
have the trust and confidence of the people of 
the State of Mississippi behind me. 

Whenever I find that I have not that trust 
and confidence, then I no longer desire to serve 

15 



the people in an official capacity. Every dictate 
■of patriotism calls for an early settlement of this 
senatorial question by the people of Mississippi. 
It is not for the welfare of Mississippi that this 
%ht, which promises to be a bitter fight, shall 
he long drawn out, arraying the good people 
in hostile camps against each other along sec- 
tional lines, which it will take generations to 
obliterate and to efface. 

Whatever advantage in this fight might come 
to me personally through delay, naught but harm 
could com.e to the welfare of my State through 
a protracted campaign, and never shall it be 
said that my personal fortunes weighed aught in 
the scale against my State's well being. 

I want to say that instead of making this 
primary come off in August, 1911, I invite and 
■challenge Mr. Vardaman to co-operate with me 
and have this primary come off in November of 
the present year (applause). 

For fifteen full years Vardaman has sung the 
song of the office seeker to the people of Missis- 
sippi, and he is familiar with every nook and 
corner of the State, and naught can come to him 
through a longer canvass. I am unknown to 
thousands of the people of Mississippi, but I 
am prepared to go before that people and de- 
fend the integrity and honor of the legislature 
■of the State of Mississippi (applause) and to 
vindicate their intelligence when they said 
through their votes that the people of Mississippi 
are weary of Vardamanism (applause). 

I would have been before this legislature at 
an earlier date and made this proposition, when 
it could have been framed into a resolution, as 
•can be done now for that matter if the body would 
hold until the middle of ne.xt week, but I could 
not come here with this investigation progress- 
ing, because I wanted the truth brought out 
without any claims that I, by my presence, swayed 
or influenced those who were conducting the 
investigation. But I ask of this legislature a 
joint resolution requesting the Democratic State 
Executive Committtee to fix a primary to be held 
between the first day and the last day of No- 
vember of the present year to name the Senator 
whom they desire to fill the long term be- 
ginning on March 4, 1913. 

Ex-Governor Vardaman. of course, will have 
to concur in this request, for it will be a primary 
held by consent, and binding on those who con- 
sent to it, but when the primary is ordered 
% the Democratic State Executive Committee, 
and the Democrats of the State of Mississippi cy- 
press their choice in 1910, the ratification of 
that choice in the primary of 1911 will be but 
a simple formality. No one can doubt this state- 
ment. 

I said that I only valued the commission from 
the State of Mississippi when the confidence 
and trust of the people who honored me with that 



commission is behind me. And I want to say- 
to you now that if the people of the State of 
Mississippi in the primary, shall say that James 
K. Vardaman, or any other son of Mississippi, is 
their choice for the long term, the commission 
that I hold from the State at the first legislature 
that convenes after that primary, will be placed 
with my resignation, in their hands. (Applause.) 
And my support, and the support of my friends, 
-will be given in that legislature for the election 
of the choice of the people for the short and un- 
expired term in the United States Senate. If ex- 
Governor Vardaman concurs in this request, and 
I have no desire to force any vote on the sub- 
ject until his friends have had an opportunity 
to confer with him, I shall request him, and 1 
do it now, tliat I shall expect him to meet me 
in joint discussion before the people of the State 
of Mississippi. (Applause.) I will there defend 
before the people of the State the commission 
which the people have honored me with, or I will 
place that commission at the disposal of the 
State (Applause). 

When I represent the state of Mississippi hi the 
Senate of the United States, I not only wane to 
know that the commission is stainless, and the 
legislature of the State of Mississippi not only 
wants to know it, the people of the State of 
Mississippi not only want to know it, but I want 
the world to know that I hold on the floor of the 
United States Senate a stainless commissitn. And 
I now challenge ex-Governor Vardaman to the 
acceptance of this primary in 1910, or any other 
son of Mississippi to enter it, and who will agree 
to be bound by it, and support the nominee of 
it (long and continued applause), to enter the 
campaign and we will fight it to the finish. 

Gentlemen, I thank you for your attention. 



Resolution Introduced in the Senate on Friday, 
April 18, 1910, for the Expulsion of Sena- 
tor Bilbo, Upon Which the Vote Was 28 
to 15. 

EXPULSION RESOLUTION. 

Resolved by the Senate, That after hearing 

and considering all the testimony in reference to 
the Bilbo-Dulaney bribery charge, it is the judg- 
ment of the Senate that such testimony demon- 
strates that Senator T. G. Bilbo is unworthy of 
belief, and he is therefore hereby expelled from 
membership in this bod}-." 



Resolution Introduced in Senate on Friday, 
April 15, 1910, Requesting the Resignation 
of Senator Bilbo Upon Which the Vote 
Was 28 to 1. 

DEMAND FOR RESIGNATION. 

"Resolved, That Theo. G. Bilbo claims to have 
played the role of decoy bribe-taker and informer 
by prearrangement with prominent friends of ex- 
Governor Vardaman, and claims in this role to 
have secured complete evidence of bribery weeks 
before the senatorial nomination, but admits that 
he failed to disclose the information he is alleged 
to have obtained to ex-Governor Vardaman, or 
to any of the Vardaman leaders until weeks after 
the nomination had lieen made and a Senator 
had been elected. The conduct on his part is ut- 
terly unexplained. 

"Resolved, in view of the unexplained incon- 
sistencies and inherent improbabilities in the tes- 
timony of Senator Theo. G. Bilbo, his established 
bad character and lack of credibility, and his 
failure to corroborate his statement on any ma- 
terial point, by any of the reputable witnesses in- 
troduced by him, that the Senate of Mississippi 
does hereby condemn his entire bribery charge 
and his statement of the role played by Iiimself 
as detective and decoy as a trumped-up false- 
hood, utterly unworthy of belief. 

"Resolved further. That as the result of the 
conduct of Theodore G. Bilbo in this matter, and 
the testimony introduced in this investigation, 
the Senate of Mississippi pronounces the said 
Bilbo as unfit to sit with honest, upright men in 
a respectable legislative body, and he is hereby 
asked to resign." 

18 



Resolution Introduced in the Senate on Friday^ 
April 15th, and the House on Saturday, 
April 16th, in Regard to the Senatorial 
Election, Which Resolution Was Passed 
by the Senate and House by a Unanimous 
Vote. 

"In view of the scandalous rumors which have 
been circulated touching the recent Senatorial 
contest, the House of Representatives takes pleas- 
ure in saying to the people of Mississippi that we 
are convinced that the conduct of every candidate 
in the Senatorial contest was dignified and honor- 
able and upright, and that no vote in the caucus 
nomination was procured by anj^ improper means 
or corrupt influence, and that the election of Sen- 
ator Percy is free from fraud or corruption. And 
regardless of whether we have supported Senator 
Percy in the recent contest, or will support him 
in the approacliing primary, we record with pleas- 
ure our confidence in the chivalrous honor and 
personal and political integrity and our desire to 
hold up his hands in the performance of his high 
duties as a representative of this great Common- 
wealth in the Senate of the United States." 



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